‘Sons of Anarchy’ Creator Reveals Why There’s No First 9 Spinoff Yet

The first Sons of Anarchy spinoff takes viewers to another motorcycle club instead of focusing on SAMCRO, even though Kurt Sutter has talked about making a prequel series.

On Friday, the SOA mastermind revealed why he chose to make a series about the Mayans MC before exploring SAMCRO’s origins.

During the Television Critics Association press tour panel on Mayans MC, Sutter said he envisions the prequel series on SAMCRO’s “First Nine” members as a miniseries.

“There was discussion about doing the show about the Mayans a while back,” Sutter told the media, reports Decider. “As Sons was ending, there were more serious discussions about how we look at other parts of the world within the IP. But I knew to do the First 9, it would be tricky.”

Sutter said fans already have a deep emotional connection to the First 9 through the original Sons of Anarchy and we know their fates. That would make it very hard to turn it into an ongoing series and also what made Mayans MC more appealing to do first.

“I knew it wasn’t a show I wanted to do as a continuing series but rather as nine or 10 episodes,” Sutter said.

The members of the First 9 are founder John Teller (Victor Newmark); Piermont “Piney” Winston (William Lucking); Lenny “The Pimp” Hanowitz (Sonny Barger); Keith McGee (Andrew McPhee); Wally Grazer (Jamie Schultz); Thomas “Uncle Tom” Whitney; Chico Villanueva (Tim Blake Nelson); Otto “Lil’ Killer” Moran (Ryan Johnston); and Clarence “Clay” Morrow (Ron Perlman).

Sutter has been talking about expanding the Sons of Anarchy universe beyond just one or two shows for awhile. In a podcast interview with Tom Arnold back in February, he said he envisioned Mayans MC as the second of four chapters.

In an interview with Deadline before San Diego Comic Con in July, Sutter said callbacks on Mayans could connect to the prequel.

“I’ve talked to [FX CEO John Landgraf] about [the prequel] and it’ll be a couple seasons in before we try to do it, but that will be the third chapter, but it will only be like 10 episodes,” Sutter explained. “I don’t see it as a series that goes longer. It’ll start in Vietnam, and it’ll be about the formation of the club and then stop after the last member of the original nine joins. That was [Clay Morrow, Ron Perlman’s SOA character]. That way we don’t begin to infringe on the story we based that on in Sons.”

Sutter said the fourth chapter would be made after Mayans MC wraps and would follow SAMCRO after the death of Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam). Another option is telling a story about Jax’s sons, Abel and Thomas. Other surviving characters could also be focal points of new series.

“Jax didn’t destroy all those copies of John Teller’s manuscript, and at some point maybe down the line we have [Drea de Matteo’s] character [Wendy Case] still out there with the boys, we have Jimmy Smit’s character [Neron ‘Nero’ Padilla] still out there. At some point perhaps there’ll be a brother story with Able and Thomas, coming back to Charming,” Sutter told Deadline. “Where it all began. If I’m still alive, that might be the last chapter.”

Mayans MC debuts on FX on Tuesday, Sept. 4. The pilot will also be available on Sept. 1 on the FX+ streaming service.